MASTER
Masterpiece of Roumanian Renaissance, the result of the work of several generations of builders, painters and churchpeople, the Church of the Argeş Monastery still staggers with its greatness and mystery. Therefore, it was only natural that its building was related to one of the most beautiful Romanian legends, wich became, later on, an exceptional ballad with numerous variants, which transcended a few centuries and reached us, telling the terrible story of the so-called bricklayer who made the miracle: Master Manole.
The story
The legendary voivode Negru Vodă orders the famous master Manole to build the church. Along with his fellow-bricklayers, he starts to work, but… big surprise! The walls he was build during the day were crumbling during the night. This happens for a while. One night, the Master is told, in his sleep, by a voice, that the church could never be built unless the first woman – wife, daughter or sister – who brings food for the bricklayers, is walled up.
The next day, the master tells his fellows the dream. The other bricklayers warn their women. When the time comes, only Ana, the master’s young wife comes to the building site. The master ask God to lay hindrances before her – storms, rains, winds – to make Ana go back. Unfortunately, her mind canot be changed from trying to reach her loved bricklayer master…
The destiny fulfilled. The masters wall Ana up, and the church can be built…
In one of the finest variants of the legend, the bricklayers are punished by God to turn into stone for what they did, even thought their purpose was to build a magnificent church.
The performance
The project „Romanian Mythology Theatre” started more than twenty yers ago, almost merging wuth the Equinox Theatre biography. This project – as consequence of researches in the theatrical antropology, folklore and mythology area, as well as field researches did by the members of our theatrical company – brought to light important performances such as: „VIA LVCIS”, „The Great Passage”, „Ther Stone Circle”, „The Golden Equinoctium’s Country”, „Torna umbra”.
But one of the most beautiful performance in this project is The Stone Man. Built on the epic ground of the legend and ballad, the performance brings to the foreground old rites and rituals from our people’s tradition. The mystery of this old mythical event is that, in order to build a holly place, a heaten ritual had to be served – that of sacrificing a human being. Here is what many analysts of the Romanian mythology called the destiny of this people, which had a solid and ancient Prechristianism, on which Christianism layed almost naturally, ajusting, mostly, to the old Romanian mythology.
This performance made a great national and international career and numerous awards and distinctions where granted to it at festivals in the country and abroad. But for us, its authors, the greatest homage was that of the audience from everywhere, who understood and valued the message.
THE MYTH CLOSER TO US
„The Master Manole”, in the excellent vision of the Equinox Theatre, was a revalation.
Thanks to this staging, we have been closer, sentimentally speaking, to a great drama, to a story with a touch of mythology, which, through the images created by the stage manager and his actors, managed to bring the myth closer to us.
Valentin Silvestru
(critic and historian of theatre)
1995
REEVALUATION OF GREAT ROMANIAN MYTHS
It is really surprising for me to realize that, at almost three years from its premiere, at a festival in Bulgaria, the performance „Mesterul Manole” remains just as fresh within its intentions, just as exact within its form and spirit as it was in the beginning. It happens that I see for the third time, and I confess that my little restraints related to the realization manner (not one word is uttered of all the words that could have been), are now scattered. I could even assert that, along with the passing of time – like good wine – the performance gained in rigour and precision.
I presume that this happens because of the fact that the three actors in the leading parts remained the same as time passed. An important thing has to be emphasized: the director and the actors follow with affection, in an applied manner, these reevaluations of great Romanian myths, but just as important is their relaxed attitude in front of what I could call ‘archetypal’ gestuality that the theatrical image is endowed with….
Victor Parhon
(critic of theatre)1996